US intelligence chief: Snowden and ‘accomplices’ should return stolen info

The most powerful intelligence official in the United States told a Senate committee Wednesday that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is a hypocrite and that he and his supposed accomplices should return any classified documents he still has.

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said in an
unusually contentious Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that
Snowden’s decision to leak a trove of classified NSA documents to
the press has hurt US security and tipped off suspected
terrorists on potentially safer ways to communicate. Clapper, who
told the same committee the NSA did not collect information on
millions of Americans months before being proven wrong, also
insinuated that Snowden had help.

“Snowden claims that he has won and that his mission is
accomplished,” Clapper said during his opening remarks to
the committee, as quoted by a transcript published by the
Washington Post. “If that is so, I call on him and
accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen
documents that have not yet been exposed to prevent even more
damage to US security.”

The director did not elaborate on what he meant by
“accomplices,” but a spokesman insisted he was
“referring to anyone who is assisting Edward Snowden to
further threaten our national security through the unauthorized
disclosure of stolen documents related to lawful foreign
intelligence collection programs.”

A number of journalists on Twitter interpreted that as a threat
to Glenn Greenwald, Barton Gellman, Laura Poitras, and the number
of other reporters who have published information based on the
Snowden documents.

Clapper calls on "Snowden & his *accomplices*" -- I guess
he means us? -- to "facilitate the return" of the document
trove.

Aside from his introductory outburst Clapper spent most of the
remainder of the hearing deflecting questions.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was among the visibly frustrated.
Wyden is the same lawmaker who asked Clapper in March about
massive data collection programs and scolded Clapper Wednesday,
accusing top intelligence officials or partaking in a “culture of
misinformation” when questioned about the programs Snowden
revealed.

“This committee can’t do oversight if we can’t get direct
answers,” Wyden said, adding that international trust in the
FBI, CIA, and NSA “has been seriously undermined by senior
officials’ reckless reliance on secret interpretations of the law
and battered by years of misleading and deceptive
statements.”

Wyden pressed Clapper to provide details on whether any searches
have ever been conducted on information US citizens “sent
over the web or in the cloud” and whether the NSA had
conducted or is continuing to conduct “warrantless
searches” on individual Americans.

“Senator Wyden, I think, at a threat hearing, this would…I
would prefer not to discuss this and have this as a separate
subject,” Clapper responded. “There are very complex
legal issues here, I just don’t think this is the appropriate
time or place.”

US President Obama has not only kept Clapper as part of the
administration but effectively endorsed the director earlier this
month when Obama announced that the polarizing data collection
programs employed by the NSA would not be eliminated. Still, six
lawmakers led by California congressman Darrell Issa signed a
letter to Obama Monday seeking Clapper’s dismissal.

“The continued role of James Clapper as director of national
intelligence is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in
our security programs and ensuring the highest level of
transparency,” they wrote.

The White House announced Clapper would not be fired by end of
the same day.

Clapper was more specific about the ongoing turmoil in the Middle
East, where he claimed that Al-Qaeda has found strength in the
uncertain political situation in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and
elsewhere.

He said counterterrorism officials now estimate that 7,000
fighters have streamed into Syria from 50 other countries,
creating the fear that extremists will use Syrian passports to
enter and attack the US. The war-torn country is “in some
respects a new FATA,” a reference to the Pakistani tribal
region that Al-Qaeda leadership has made its home. Al-Nusra, an
Al-Qaeda-backed rebel group that has become one of the most
feared rebel factions in Syria “does have aspirations for
attacks on the homeland,” Clapper said.